Categories
Complementary and alternative medicine Homeopathy Quackery Surgery

Homeopathy for hemorrhoids? What a pain in the…well, you know

In a past life, before I became so specialized, I was a general surgeon. Like all surgical oncologists and even breast surgeons, before I became a specialist, I had to do a general surgery residency. In addition to the usual cancer problems a general surgeon faces, the two most common being breast and colon cancer, […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Pseudoscience Quackery Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Has Dr. Oz become antivaccine? The answer would appear to be yes.

ORAC NOTE: I’ve added the links to the video segments, which are now up at the Dr. Oz website. I also did a screen grab of a certain really stupid thing that I noticed when I watched the segment but, because I was watching it on DVR, didn’t have the ability to show you. It’s […]

Categories
Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Quackery Religion

Why reiki masters can’t lose

Regular readers of my not-so-super-secret other blog, where I write under my own name, know that last month Steve Novella and I published a rather nice (if I do say so myself) opinion piece in a peer-reviewed journal about what we called “clinical trials of magic.” In it, we argued that certain alternative medicine modalities […]

Categories
Cancer Medicine

The unsinkable rubber duck of a myth that bras cause breast cancer

Besides being a researcher and prolific blogger, I still maintain a practice in breast cancer surgery. It’s one of the more satisfying specialties in oncology because, in the vast majority of cases I treat, I can actually remove the cancer and “cure” the patient. (I use the quotes because we generally don’t like to use […]

Categories
Antivaccine nonsense Autism Biology Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Pseudoscience Religion Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Religious fundamentalists try to prove fetal DNA in vaccines causes autism and fail

There are some myths, bits of misinformation, or lies about medicine that I like to refer to zombie quackery. The reasons are obvious. Like at the end of a horror movie, just when you think the myth is finally dead, its rotting hand rises out of the dirt to grab your leg and drag you […]